


Patron Saint

by mavve



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, BARELY but i thought i should tag it, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slow Burn, dont be fool by the many tags, everyone else is background - Freeform, more like ineffable boyfriends, this is totally ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19783153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mavve/pseuds/mavve
Summary: Aziraphale is getting through high school just fine, thank you very much. With his friends Anathema and Newt by his side, he bravely charges forward towards Year Twelve, only to find that new kid and mysterious bad boy named Crowley is going to be his project partner. A mysterious bad boy who is definitely not the most beautiful thing Aziraphale has ever laid eyes on. Not at all.Maybe a little.





	Patron Saint

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the fic! This is gonna be long, this is gonna be slow, and this is gonna be gay. Hold on tight.  
> (Expect at least 1 update a week)  
> Title and chapter titles are all from Regina Spektor's song Patron Saint.

In a town that, throughout its history, had rarely managed to stay in one place, tending to drift towards Scotland, flirting with its borders, while still consistently and definitively landing within England, it was the first day of school. The town had changed its name various times over it’s many years, and it isn’t really important which one it had chosen during the time of our story. What is important, is the subjective truth in claiming that it was the first day of school. 

One might say that this statement was objectively false; after all, the day on which almost every student had shown up, more or less on time at seven in the morning, feeling the usual disgruntlement that comes with being a teenager, and the usual energy of people who have only slept a handful of hours the past night, was solid week ago- exactly seven days, actually. 

However, it  _ was _ the first day of school for one Aziraphale Seraphim, whose family had been on a rather lavish vacation in the Carribean for the past week, not to mention the entirety of August. Missing the first week of school was a problem for other people; specifically, people whose family had not founded- and continued to almost entirely fund- the school in question. 

It was also a problem, one might consider, when you were as much of an egghead as Aziraphale Seraphim. 

However, at the moment, no one was considering this. Not even Aziraphale- he was busy looking for friends that he hadn’t been able to contact since the end of July. 

(No one was considering if this counted as the- or, rather  _ a _ first day of school, either. No one except myself and  _ you _ , dear reader.)

Aziraphale looked around the entrance hall, nervously shuffling, trying, with absolutely no success, to avoid being brutally shoved by his so-called peers into marble walls. He wasn’t exactly what you might call a ‘people person’ and became even less so when you tried to fit about two hundred teenagers, both lingering and running, into one room. 

He felt lucky that the room had air conditioning, lest he be buried by the heat, and sweat, and admittedly much taller  _ mob  _ that was forming around him. He felt equally glad that he wasn’t panicking, or he might really be in trouble. He wasn’t panicking. He was not. 

To his left, he could see his older brother Gabriel being surrounded and greeted by a rather large group of only the richest, most popular year thirteens. The sight didn’t exactly help him, or comfort him, but it did give him some sort of an anchor to hold onto in the madness. An anchor strong enough, that he crashed directly into what might be considered, following the rules of the metaphor, a piece of driftwood. Or pollution. What it would be considered in reality, was a human being. 

Luckily enough, the person in question, adorned in neutral colors, reacted quickly enough to prevent them from sprawling across the tile floor and creating a rather unfortunate dog pile of sorts. Backing up, stiff as a rod, he grabbed Aziraphales shoulders firmly to steady him, staring at him unnervingly and smiling. The kid at his side, who had equally white hair, albeit much dirtier and poorly groomed, shouted something unpleasant about watching where he was going. Aziraphale wasn’t really paying attention, caught up in a pair of rather disturbing grey eyes. 

_ Weiss.  _ He thought belatedly, as his shoulders were finally released.  _ His name is Weiss. At least, I think it is. He was here last year, wasn’t he? _

“You might want to be more careful, Aziraphale.” Weiss replied, finally walking off, grey eyes disappearing as he and his companion blended back into the quickly dispersing crowd.

“Sorry! I’m really quite sorry…” he replied sluggishly, social niceties trailing off as he realized that his apology had come too late, and that he was talking to no one. Looking around the now nearly empty hall, he realized two things. Firstly, that he had definitely missed the opportunity to connect with his friends, and secondly, that if he didn’t get moving quickly, he was going to be late for class. 

_ No need to put yourself any further behind than you already are,  _ he thought to himself anxieties about his missing week of school creeping back up. Gabriel hadn’t been worried, claiming that nothing important ever happened during the first week of school anyway. Aziraphale hadn’t managed to adopt such a lenient attitude. He wasn’t aware how long the vacation would be until he was already on it, and ergo, hadn’t been able to explain anything to his friends. 

_ I should’ve texted them last night.  _ He thought.  _ I should’ve texted them the moment the plane landed. They probably think I moved, or switched schools, or something.  _ The only other school was on the opposite side of town, what one might call the ‘wrong side of the tracks.’ (Or, if one was any less polite and slightly pretentious than Aziraphale, they might call it ‘the poor neighborhood.) However, Aziraphale wasn’t thinking about how unlikely it was that he was that he would switch schools, he was thinking about all the terrible, terrible likelihoods. 

How likely it was that all his friends had already abandoned him. How likely it was that his teachers would be mad. How likely it was that he would never be able to catch up on a missed week of work. How likely it was that he was going to be late. He was thinking about getting to pre-calculus. He was not thinking about the logistics of entering a classroom. 

He walked straight into the door. 

\----

It wasn’t until lunch that Aziraphale finally found some reprieve from his crushing anxiety. His friends were found at their usual place outside the back door of the school, and had not assumed that Aziraphale had suddenly packed up his bags and moved. Eating outdoors was a polarizing activity- you would never dare been seen eating in the cafeteria if you were popular, even a little; but inversely, the punks, outcasts, and general freaks would ‘refuse to be bound to the prison building’ as well. The only difference tended to be where they would go- punks would hang around a convenience store, volleyball girls would linger at the mall, poor kids would gather at the local McDonald’s, and, if you were in Aziraphale’s group, you would linger on the edge of the woods, about five hundred yards from the school. 

This had started in key stage three, when they were first allowed outside to eat (although, not off of school grounds.) Although their group was mostly left alone, or even considered popular- in no small part due to Aziraphale’s status as a member of the Seraphim family- Anathema had, at this point, jumped onto the ‘avoid people at all costs and attempt to become one with nature’ bandwagon, which wasn’t entirely uncommon for practising pagans. The phase came and went, but the meeting place stuck.

“I just think that’s it’s a little unfair that  _ he, _ ” Newt gestured wildly at Aziraphale, “who, no offence Az, knows  _ nothing  _ about computers, can miss the first  _ week _ of programming and just-! Just, still just-!”

“Do much better than you?” Anathema offered. “It’s not like he was doing a good job,” Aziraphale tried very hard not to be offended by this, “it’s just that you set the bar  _ so low _ .” Newt, with much less success, also tried hard to not take offence. 

“I’m good with computers! I  _ am. _ ” Newt argued, not without some despair in his voice. Aziraphale couldn’t help but feel some level of sympathy- Newt really did  _ seem _ to be good with computers. He had all the facts, he knew everything one could know about programming without actually ever doing it, it was just when he put his skills into practice that… Well, things started to explode. 

“Of course you are.” Aziraphale said comfortingly. Anathema scoffed. 

“You weren’t here on tuesday.” She snapped, although not without some humor. “He blew every fuse in the school. Late August without air conditioning-  _ ugh. _ ” 

“Well, what about the first day of school?”

“We weren’t allowed on the computers on the first day. They just read the syllabus.” Newt explained dejectedly. 

“...Ah. Well… at least you’ve shown great improvement over the past week!” Aziraphale offered lamely, voice full of obviously false cheer. He didn’t really know how one was supposed to respond to that bit of depressing news. “Things could always be worse.” 

“Could they, though?”

“Don’t be such a bummer.” Anathema interrupted, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Let’s see, what else have you missed? August… what happened during August, Newt?”

“Well, the cafe reop-”

“Oh! I know what you missed, you missed the cafe reopening!” she declared cheekily. “Just before the first day of school.”

“Really, you managed to clean up all the fire damage that quickly?”

“Mmm-hmmm. It was mostly smoke damage, anyway. It’s amazing how cheap thrift store furniture and a couple of paint cans can be.” She replied, continuing to explain with more and more details on the cafe’s reopening, barely even listening to herself. Aziraphale was equally grateful and annoyed with her ability to fill the silence. 

“Y’know, um, something else new happened, too.” Newt offered, looking around as if for approval. “The uh, new kids?” Anathema lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Ohhh,  _ right. _ ” Instead of interrupting, she just gestured for Newt to continue.

“The, uh, the Lucifer’s.”

“Their last name is  _ Lucifer? _ ” 

“Right?!” Anathema replied excitedly, pacing around, gesturing again towards her companion. 

“They, uh. Four new kids.” he stammered out. The town they lived in wasn’t quite small enough to justify any new citizens as ‘news,’ but it was small enough that if said new family was full of nothing but trouble makers and punks, it headline material. Which just so happened to be the case. “They live on the west side,” This is what Newt, who was just as polite, but not as pretentious as Aziraphale, called the poor side of town. “So I don’t know why they’re going here. The oldest one, Beelzebub- oh, don’t give me that look, I know,  _ who names a kid that _ , like I have any idea- and, H- oh, and Beelzebub is in, um, year thirteen, by the way-”

The going-ons of year thirteens, it should be mentioned, mean absolutely nothing to semi-popular year twelves, so this was more or less dismissing this ‘Beelzebub’ out of hand. “Then there’s Hastur, and Ligur, and they’re year twelves- Ligur is adopted, I think, hell maybe they all are- and Hastur has this gross ass scraggly white hair…” Anathema was looking more and more bored with Newts various tangents, but Aziraphale perked up suddenly. 

“Oh! I saw him this morning! At least, I think I did. He was hanging around that one kid, Weiss, I believe it was?” 

“Oh god, that creep?” Anathema finally cut in. “Hasn’t he been held back, like, a million times? And anyway, who cares about him? The point is, they’ve only been here a week, and they’re already the worst. They skip class, they steal, they slam kids in lockers, I saw Hastur and that Red chick drinking behind the 7/11 at like, two in the morning-”

“What were you doing behind the 7/11 at two in the morning?”

“Does it matter? I wasn’t getting wasted!” She snapped. “They’re very weird. They’re awful. Punks. Lunatics. Satanists.” she declared haughtily. 

“Don’t you call yourself a witch?” Newt asked, not without innocence. 

“Oculist, witch, paganist, whatever you wanna call it,” she replied, “at least I’m not an asshole.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!! Also ajsdhkj I know Crowley wasn't in this chapter at ALL and I feel terrible cause he's my BOY,,, he'll be there next chapter I promise.


End file.
